They did not look like women, or at least a stranger new to the district
might easily have been misled by their appearance, as they stood
together in a group, by the pit's mouth. There were about a dozen of
them there--all "pit-girls," as they were called; women who wore a
dress more than half masculine, and who talked loudly and laughed
discordantly, and some of whom, God knows, had faces as hard and brutal
as the hardest of their collier brothers and husbands and sweethearts.
They had lived among the coal-pits, and had worked early and late at the
"mouth," ever since they had been old enough to take part in the heavy
labor. It was not to be wondered at that they had lost all bloom of
womanly modesty and gentleness. Their mothers had been "pit-girls" in
their time, their grandmothers in theirs; they had been born in coarse
homes; they had fared hardly, and worked hard; they had breathed in the
dust and grime of coal, and, somehow or other, it seemed to stick to
them and reveal itself in their natures as it did in their bold unwashed
faces. At first one shrank from them, but one's shrinking could not
fail to change to pity. There was no element of softness to rule or even
influence them in their half savage existence.

On the particular evening of which I speak, the group at the pit's mouth
were even more than usually noisy. They were laughing, gossiping and
joking,--coarse enough jokes,--and now and then a listener might have
heard an oath flung out as if all were well used to the sound. Most of
them were young women, though there were a few older ones among them,
and the principal figure in the group--the center figure, about whom the
rest clustered--was a young woman. But she differed from the rest in two
or three respects. The others seemed somewhat stunted in growth; she was
tall enough to be imposing. She was as roughly clad as the poorest of
them, but she wore her uncouth garb differently. The man's jacket of
fustian, open at the neck, bared a handsome sunbrowned throat. The man's
hat shaded a face with dark eyes that had a sort of animal beauty, and a
well-molded chin. It was at this girl that all the rough jokes seemed to
be directed.

"Tha'st noan ha' me sweetheartin' wi' siccan a foo'," she said, "I amna
ower fond o' men folk at no time. I've had my fill on 'em; and I'm noan
loike to tak' up wi' such loike as this un. An' he's no an a Lunnoner
neither. He's on'y fro' th' South. An th' South is na Lunnon."

Another burst of derisive laughter followed her, but she took no notice
of it She took no notice of anything--not even of the two men who at
that very moment passed and turned to look at her as she went by.

"A fine creature!" said one of them.

"A fine creature!" echoed the other. "Yes, and you see that is precisely
it, Derrick. 'A fine creature'--and nothing else."

They were the young engineer and his friend the Reverend Paul Grace,
curate of the parish. There were never two men more unlike, physically
and mentally, and yet it would have been a hard task to find two natures
more harmonious and sympathetic. Still most people wondered at and
failed to comprehend their friendship. The mild, nervous little Oxonian
barely reached Derrick's shoulder; his finely cut face was singularly
feminine and innocent; the mild eyes beaming from behind his small
spectacles had an absent, dreamy look. One could not fail to see at
the first glance, that this refined, restless, conscientious little
gentleman was hardly the person to cope successfully with Riggan.
Derrick strode by his side like a young son of Anak--brains and muscle
evenly balanced and fully developed.

He turned his head over his shoulder to look at Joan Lowrie once again.

"That girl," said Grace, "has worked at the pit's mouth from her
childhood; her mother was a pit girl until she died--of hard work,
privation and ill treatment. Her father is a collier and lives as most
of them do--drinking, rioting, fighting. Their home is such a home as
you have seen dozens of since you came here; the girl could not better
it if she tried, and would not know how to begin if she felt inclined.
She has borne, they tell me, such treatment as would have killed most
women. She has been beaten, bruised, felled to the earth by this father
of hers, who is said to be a perfect fiend in his cups. And yet she
holds to her place in their wretched hovel, and makes herself a slave
to the fellow with a dogged, stubborn determination. What can I do with
such a case as that, Derrick?"

"You have tried to make friends with the girl?" said Derrick.

Grace colored sensitively.

"There is not a man, woman or child in the parish," he answered, "with
whom I have not conscientiously tried to make friends, and there
is scarcely one, I think, with whom I have succeeded. Why can I not
succeed? Why do I always fail? The fault must be with myself----"

"A mistake that at the outset," interposed Derrick. "There is no
'fault' in the matter; there is simply misfortune. Your parishioners are
so unfortunate as not to be able to understand you, and on your part you
are so unfortunate as to fail at first to place yourself on the right
footing with them. I say 'at first' you observe. Give yourself time,
Grace, and give them time too."

"Thank you," said the Reverend Paul. "But speaking of this girl--'That
lass o' Lowrie's,' as she is always called--Joan I believe her name is.
Joan Lowrie is, I can assure you, a weight upon me. I cannot help her
and I cannot rid my mind of her. She stands apart from her fellows. She
has most of the faults of her class, but none of their follies; and she
has the reputation of being half feared, half revered. The man who dared
to approach her with the coarse love-making which is the fashion among
them, would rue it to the last day of his life. She seems to defy all
the world."

"And it is impossible to win upon her?"

"More than impossible. The first time I went to her with sympathy, I
felt myself a child in her hands. She never laughed nor jeered at me
as the rest do. She stood before me like a rock, listening until I had
finished speaking. 'Parson,' she said, 'if thal't leave me alone, I'll
leave thee alone,' and then turned about and walked into the house. I
am nothing but 'th' parson' to these people, and 'th' parson' is one for
whom they have little respect and no sympathy."

He was not far wrong. The stolid heavy-natured colliers openly
looked down upon 'th' parson.' A 'bit of a whipper snapper,' even the
best-natured called him in sovereign contempt for his insignificant
physical proportions. Truly the sensitive little gentleman's lines had
not fallen in pleasant places. And this was not all. There was another
source of discouragement with which he had to battle in secret, though
of this he would have felt it almost dishonor to complain. But
Derrick's keen eyes had seen it long ago, and, understanding it well, he
sympathized with his friend accordingly. Yet, despite the many rebuffs
the curate had met with, he was not conquered by any means. His was not
an easily subdued nature, after all. He was very warm on the subject of
Joan Lowrie this evening--so warm, indeed, that the interest the mere
sight of the girl had awakened in Derrick's mind was considerably
heightened. They were still speaking of her when they stopped before the
door of Grace's modest lodgings.

"You will come in, of course?" said Paul.

"Yes," Derrick answered, "for a short time. I am tired and shall feel
all the better for a cup of Mrs. Burnie's tea," pushing the hair back
from his forehead, as he had a habit of doing when a little excited.

He made the small parlor appear smaller than ever, when he entered it.
He was obliged to bend his head when he passed through the door, and it
was not until he had thrown himself into the largest easy chair, that
the trim apartment seemed to regain its countenance.

Grace paused at the table, and with a sudden flush, took up a letter
that lay there among two or three uninteresting-looking epistles.

"It is a note from Miss Anice," he said, coming to the hearth and
applying his pen-knife in a gentle way to the small square envelope.

"Not a letter, Grace?" said Derrick with a smile.

"A letter! Oh dear, no! She has never written me a letter. They are
always notes with some sort of business object. She has very decided
views on the subject of miscellaneous letter-writing."

He read the note himself and then handed it to Derrick.

It was a compact, decided hand, free from the suspicion of an
unnecessary curve.

"Dear Mr. Grace,--

"Many thanks for the book. You are very kind indeed. Pray
let us hear something more about your people. I am afraid
papa must find them very discouraging, but I cannot help
feeling interested. Grandmamma wishes to be remembered to
you,

"With more thanks,

"Believe me your friend,

"Anice Barholm."

Derrick refolded the note and handed it back to his friend. To tell
the truth, it did not impress him very favorably. A girl not yet twenty
years old, who could write such a note as this to a man who loved her,
must be rather _too_ self-contained and well balanced.

"You have never told me much of this story, Grace," he said.

"There is not much to tell," answered the curate, flushing again. "She
is the Rector's daughter. I have known her three years. You remember I
wrote to you about meeting her while you were in India. As for the rest,
I do not exactly understand myself how it is that I have gone so far,
having so--so little